Zimbabwe: Right Again On The Jestina Mukoko Abduction!

I see that most of you guys visiting this blog between last night and today are going straight to my post published on 9 December, entitled Zimbabwe Abductions: The Link To The Insurgency/State of Emergency/"Mutiny" Case. Click on it to read my report and analysis, which is turning ou to be 100% accurate. Jestina Mukoko has now been seen alive, when she was brought to her parents' home by policemen who wanted to search for "subversive" material there. She is in court as I write this.

After I published the post above, readers left a few comments there, with some saying what I was saying in there was "too far-fetched." One reader, whose comment never saw the light of day (because it was abusive) accused me of "smearing a good lady." I just wondered when I read that whether the reader understood the difference between stating facts and stating opinion. If you report on reliable information that so-and-so is dead, does that mean you have killed them?

Anyway, in that article, I told you that "the next time we see Gandi Mudzingwa, Jestina Mukoko and the two staff members from the ZPP will be in the company of the eleven or 15 MDC activists who were also abducted........They will be appearing together as either "co-conspirators or architects of the insurgency in the evidence" to be put forward by Mugabe. There has already been mention in the media of Mugabe's request that the SADC team come to Zimbabwe for a presentation of witnesses in this alleged insurgency. These would certainly include Ms Mukoko, her two staff members and Gandi Mudzingwa." That's what I wrote on 09 December.

I was surprised that even reputable journalists were thinking that this was some sort of Chilean , Pinochet-type operation, with Mugbae basically "disappearing" people who would never be seen again. Mugabe, evil, brutal and relentless, is certainly much smarter than that. As the Los Angeles Times said last week, he is smart enough to only use a certain level of "internationally acceptable violence." Ask Tsvangirai to repeat to you what he told us after meeting the dictator for lunch at Sheraton Hotel after the signing of the September 15 agreement. The dictator is neither senile nor diminished in mental capacity: Tsvangirai said that. And we'd better not have underestimated the physical and mental forces at play here.

This issue is being treated as a matter of National Security by Mugabe. So it is likely that the evidence and testimony will  be held in camera, meaning behind closed doors. If it is, all you need to do is read that article on this blog whose link I have provided in red above and you will basically know what the case against them is.

As I communicated to Mr Tsvangirai last week, who turns out to be a regular reader here, the issue of the "insurgency case" has nothing to do with "forcing the MDC to join ZANU PF"  in a GNU as some of his less bright supporters have been saying in newspapers and online journals. (Then again, I have never overestimated the intelligence of my detractors) 

This is about finally destroying the MDC as a political force in this country. The aim is to make the MDC totally non-functional, to paralyse it within the borders of Zimbabwe. This is going to very swiftly culminate in the banning of the MDC from participating in elections on the grounds of it being a "terrorist organisation". 

Further: Do not be confused by the talk of Tsvangirai's passport being released and this being denied by the MDC. Tsvangirai is well aware that the passport has indeed been released. But he is also keenly aware of why it has been released: It has been released to get him back into the country so that he also can be dragged into this "insurgency" matter, charged alongside Jestina and the others and perhaps jailed, thereby killing the power-sharing agreement, for how can you appoint a Prime Minister from jail, incarcerated for plotting to violently overthrow the government?

More crucially, though, and this is where I wish most of you would please pay attention, because this is the second time I am mentioning it,  Mugabe has a Plan B, which is actually his preferred plan. And it goes like this: Go ahead and appoint Tsvangirai Prime Minister anyway and treat him with "dignity and respect" while at the same time decimating his party, the MDC on the basis of these charges.  As I say, I have mentioned this before (yeah, yeah, too "far-fetched"). It is a divide and rule tactic, but one so diabolically smart that, if Mr Tsvangirai is not extremely careful, he will fall right into it.

Already , he is standing on the ledge, with SADC trying to push him over.

The idea is to basically get Tsvangirai stranded in office, a PM without a party structure backing him. How? By weaving this whole thing in such a way that it will be announced that the insurgents were planning all this without the knowledge of Tsvangirai himself. That he was never involved and knew nothing of the extent to which they had gone. Every other leader in the MDC below the ministerial level will be "guilty." Perhaps even a minister or two in the GNU (such as Tendai Biti), could also be sacrificed by Mugabe on these charges.

In the end, Mugabe hopes that the MDC ministers will feel so grateful for having their necks spared that they will toe the line. They will have no choice, says the dictator, "because they will be serving at my pleasure". With no party structure to back them, the next elections would also be looking good for Mugabe, and we will see overtures to get the MDC ministers to pull a ZAPU: publicly join forces with Mugabe's ZANU PF and be elected into the structures of that party. Mugabe believes he has a strategy that can achieve this. You will see. I am taking bets.

Mr Tsvangirai would do well to think very carefully and ruminate at length on the call he got from the South African president on Thursday asking him to return home and set up the government. He is in a tight spot, diplomatically and I would not trade places with him for all the gold in the world. He is damned if he does and damned if doesn't.

Now I wait for the "experts" to start commenting about this, wiser after the fact.